With 'Man of the Woods'

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Justin Timberlake Earns Fourth No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart

With 'Man of the Woods'

Justin Timberlake notches his fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as Man of the Woods debuts atop the tally. The set, which was released on Feb. 2 through RCA Records, earned 293,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Feb. 8, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 242,000 were in traditional album sales.

Timberlake scores the largest week for an album -- both in terms of units and pure album sales -- since Taylor Swift’s Reputation flew in at No. 1 on the Dec. 2, 2017-dated chart with 1.24 million units and 1.22 million in album sales. Timberlake claims the biggest week for an album by a man since Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. debuted at No. 1 on the May 6, 2017 list with 603,000 units and 353,000 in traditional album sales.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new Feb. 17-dated chart (where Man of the Woods starts at No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard's websites on Tuesday (Feb. 13).

Of Man of the Woods’ launch of 293,000 units, 242,000 were in traditional album sales, 14,000 were in TEA units, and 37,000 were in SEA units. Of its pure album sales, 139,000 were in digital albums, 89,000 were in CD sales and 15,000 were in vinyl LP sales.

Notably, Man of the Woods also claims the biggest-selling week for a vinyl album since LCD Soundsystem’s American Dream sold 16,000 in its first week, on the chart dated Sept. 23, 2017. (Target carried an exclusive orange-colored edition of Man of the Woods on vinyl, while all other retailers had the standard black vinyl version.)

Overall, Timberlake has the second-biggest sales week for a vinyl LP among solo male artists since Nielsen Music began tracking data in 1991. Only the debut frame of Jack White's Lazaretto was larger: 40,000 in 2014. (Among all soloists in the Nielsen era, only one other artist has sold as many vinyl LPs in a week as Timberlake and White: Adele, who did it in five separate weeks with her 25 album in late 2015.

Timberlake’s last album, The 20/20 Experience (2 of 2), debuted at No. 1 on the Oct. 19, 2013-dated chart with 350,000 in traditional album sales. (The chart did not transition to a units-based ranking until the end of 2014.) Timberlake has also topped the list with his first installment of The 20/20 Experience (earlier in 2013; 968,000 copies sold in its first week) and FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006; 684,000). His only album to miss the top was his first solo set, Justified, which debuted and peaked at No. 2 in 2002 (bowing with 439,000 sold).

Of course, the group *NSYNC — with Timberlake as a member — tallied two Billboard 200 No. 1s: No Strings Attached, in 2000, and Celebrity, in 2001.